THANK YOU to Rick and Pat Rountree of Dundee Internet Serviceshttp://www.dundee.net/ for donating, designing, and hosting our email list and website. We appreciate your infinite patience and Debbie Miller’s excellent designs and tech support. Who knows where we would be – or if we would be – without you!

THANK YOU to Susan Trowbridge who signed up to “assist” at the Tax Day Tea Party in Monroe April 15th last year. When she discovered there was no leader to assist, she organized and sponsored the event, and then launched the River Raisin Patriots with her recruits. The team has since changed, and as we expanded to also reach out to Downriver patriots, the name was changed to Patriots of Southeast Michigan. We will forever be indebted!

T-SHIRTS – WE NEED INPUT!
We are in the process of designing t-shirts with a Patriots of SE MI logo. We would appreciate some feedback on the following proposals:
- T-shirts in choice of red or blue
- Logo on the pocket area ( in white or red/white/blue – still undecided)
- Printing on the back? Suggestions?
- Cost: approx. $7-8
Please comment on the above or other ideas, and also indicate what colors and sizes you might want to purchase (no obligation). grassroots@riverraisinpatriots.org
Thanks!

UPCOMING EVENTS: TOWN HALL AND TAX DAY RALLY
We are planning a town hall meeting March 8th and will give details soon. We are also planning a rally for April 15. Stay tuned! If you would like to be involved, please email us and/or attend the meetings which will be posted in the newsletter and on our website.

THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT vs. THE TEA PARTY NATION CONVENTION: Perspectives

TEA Party Nation and its Convention are Republican Trojan Horses

By Don Mashak February 6, 2010

First some quick premises and reference points. The TEA Party Movement is not one group. There are about 20 major TEA Party / Grassroots groups and 30-50 smaller TEA Party / Grass roots Groups. TEA Party Nation came into existence in about August of 2009. The true TEA Party Movement has been around about a year. True TEA Party and grassroots organizations take direction from the bottom up. TEA Party Nation and other Republican Trojan Horses exert control and direction from the top down….

But the average American does not have to rely on anyone’s news story to realize that the TEA Party Nation Convention is not a grassroots organized event. To begin with, we true grassroots TEA Party folks have been rallying, marching, blogging and meeting since about a year ago. We are common folks of modest means. Further, most “true” tea party / grassroots groups have directives and policies which forbid alignment with any political party. Most only express their values and principles as “limited Government”, “Adherence to the Constitution and Bill of Rights”, “Fiscal Responsibility and “Belief in Free Markets” A recurring theme is that corrupt incumbent politicians of both political parties have betrayed WE THE PEOPLE and caused the mess we find ourselves in….

But, lest you think that the TEA Party Movement is dead, you need not despair. Most of us True TEA Partyers ignored this TEA Party Nation Convention. We are not lemmings. We are not astroturf. We are determined individualists. Even in the Republican Trojan horse groups, the top down leadership has run into major obstacles. In short, we true TEA Partyers are giving them fits by ignoring their top down command….

With that I say to you, the TEA Party Revolution is alive and well… The major media Sycophants will spin the TEA Party Nation Convention to the best of their ability, but it will amount to naught. Further, I assure you the best is yet to come.

Let us unite, so we can defeat the corrupt, duplicitous career political hacks that have destroyed our economy, weakened our country, stolen from us and sold our prosperity to our foreign enemies.

What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention
By Glenn Reynolds February 13, 2010
Pundits claim the tea partiers are angry—and they are—but the most striking thing about the atmosphere in Nashville was how cheerful everyone seemed to be. I spoke with dozens of people, and the responses were surprisingly similar. Hardly any had ever been involved in politics before. Having gotten started, they were finding it to be not just worthwhile, but actually fun….
A year ago, many told me, they were depressed about the future of America. Watching television pundits talk about President Obama’s transformative plans for big government, they felt alone, isolated and helpless. That changed when protests, organized by bloggers, met Mr. Obama a year ago in Denver, Colo., Mesa, Ariz., and Seattle, Wash. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli’s famous on-air rant on Feb. 19, 2009, which gave the tea-party movement its name.
Tea partiers are still angry…. But they’re no longer depressed.
Instead, they seem energized. And surprisingly media savvy….
Press attention focused on Sarah Palin’s speech, which was well-received by the crowd. But the attendees I met weren’t looking to her for direction. They were hoping she would move in theirs….http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059293624940362.html

Beginning Of The End: Sarah Palin Hijacks The Tea Party Movement
By Kleinheider on February 7, 2010
The movement, that came to be officially recognized almost a year ago but whose roots go back further than that, has been snuffed out and replaced in the public mind. The movement that began as a people’s movement of angry independent, libertarians and conservatives will now be thought as the movement of people like Palin, Dick Armey, Judson Phillips, Mark Skoda, etc. Essentially, a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Official Conservative Movement” and the Republican Party.
This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique.http://politics.nashvillepost.com/2010/02/07/the-begining-of-the-end-sarah-palin-hijacks-the-tea-party-movement/

I’m Afraid Sarah Palin Might Be Ruining Herself Unintentionally by Erick Erickson January 11th
The tea party movement was always about the unorganized masses of concerned, passionate Americans uniting together with a common voice to protest the direction of the country. From that passion, others have sought to make money off the tea party movement. Some have done it for good. Many have not. And more and more we are seeing some people rise up to claim the mantle of “leader” of the tea party movement. Many of us who have been around for a while just want to know who the heck these so called leaders are.
The tea party “leaders”, if there are any, are actively at work in their home towns changing things one letter to the editor, one contribution to a candidate, and one protest at a time.http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/01/11/im-afraid-sarah-palin-might-be-ruining-herself-unintentionally/

THE FIGHT FOR AMERICA

Ben Stein Understands: We Are In A Fight To Save America, The Greatest Country In The World!January 30, 2010
There is only one America where a man like Barack Obama, out of nowhere, with no family background of connections or power, could come to be president. There is no other country that takes in the wretched of the earth and in two generations — in one generation — raises them to the ranks of the mighty. If America is murdered by the Muslim terrorists and the environmentalist dictators and the atheists who want to take God out of our lives, there is no other place for freedom to have its citadel. There will be just unending darkness across the earth.http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/ben-stein-understands-we-are

The Law, the Constitution, and Definitions
by Michael LeMieux
There are some in our society, and in government, that believe the Constitution is a living document that must “change” with the times. Oh really? They would have us believe that when someone writes a document for the establishment of a government that the documents meaning would change just because time had passed. And who would be the deciding voice on that change? And who would decide which passages are changeable and which were not?…..http://www.newswithviews.com/LeMieux/michael112.html

OBAMA AND CONGRESS

PJTV: The Power & Danger of Iconography – video

Eye-opening demonstration of the impact and influence of icons and the Obama team’s effective use of them

Obama Declares He Will Rule by Authoritarian Decree Kurt Nimmo February 13, 2010
The Obama administration has announced it will now rule by fascist decree and ignore Congress and the American people.
“With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities,” reports The New York Times. “We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staffhttp://www.infowars.com/obama-declares-he-will-rule-by-authoritarian-decree/

Obama vs. the all-volunteer military
Barack Obama’s inadequacy as Commander-in-Chief
By Frank Gaffney Jr. Monday, February 1, 2010
Team Obama is severely reducing the power-projection capabilities of the United States with program cuts and a just-announced change in strategy that will embolden America’s enemies and compound the distress felt by its allies about our growing unreliability.
China is responding to what it perceives to be our declining power by becoming ever more well-armed, assertive and contemptuous.http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19568

Burt Prelutsky, LA Times
“Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re number one. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘Macbeth’. The three of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.” http://prelutsky.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-and-improved-iron-curtain.html

* * * * * * * * Health-care plan redoubles ‘marriage penalty’By Bob Unruh February 10, 2010
Bills pending in Congress that would nationalize health care by setting up mandatory insurance purchases and fines for not complying could penalize married couples $10,000 annually and are a direct attack on marriage, families and the church because of their discriminatory provisions, according to a congressional candidate.
“This is as awful, I will say evil … this is as evil as it gets,” Allen Quist, who is running to unseat Democrat Tim Walz in Minnesota’s 1st congressional district, told WND.
Quist said the fine print of provisions still alive in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives deliberately create enormous pressure for couples to live together without marriage – or even get divorced – by charging married couples thousands of dollars more in premiums and fees.
“And it’s deliberate,” Quist added, “This is clearly not accidental.”
“This is the most insidious attack on our country we have ever seen..’.”http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124658

ClimateGate’s Phil ‘Hide the Decline’ Jones Admits Manipulating Datahttp://www.repubx.com/ February 13, 2010
The British scientist in the middle of November’s ClimateGate scandal says that contrary to what Al Gore and many in the media claim, the debate concerning manmade global warming is not over.
“There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well,” Phil Jones, the former head of Britain’s Climatic Research Unit told the BBC.
In a lengthy Q&A published at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm Saturday , Jones also said: the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented.
Maybe most important, Jones explained what “hide the decline” in ClimateGate e-mail messages meant confirming they manipulated data.
A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical? [...]
[T]he warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other. [...]

B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. [...]

C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant….Entire Q & A:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

U.S. city considers surrender to ‘green police’
By Drew Zahn February 13, 2010
What would life in an American city look like if it required its residents go green to combat climate change? Would it be all trees and gardens and bicycles, or would it look more like oppression under Big Brother’s green thumb?
Cambridge, Mass., home of Harvard University, may be giving the country a glimpse of the answer.http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125042